Speech by H.E. Vincent Piket, Ambassador & Head of Delegation of the European Commission Delegation to Malaysia

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Conclusion
All in all, am I happy of what the EU is doing in Malaysia? Yes, I am, we
have a good and expanding agenda. 
 
But am I satisfied? No, I am not satisfied, for two reasons.
 
The first reason is that the awareness and familiarity of EU in Malaysia is
still only budding. Ask people randomly what they know about the EU,
and you will find that even the educated class will often have a very
partial response. People just don’t know that the EU has 500 million
citizens, the world’s largest economy, and that we have the world’s
largest trade volume. We need to improve this through outreach,
cooperation with the education sector, and especially through expanding
a concrete Malaysia-EU agenda which creates concrete results.
 
The second aspect is that we need to raise the level of political dialogue
between the EU and Malaysia. We need more meetings between our
leaders. We need more high-level visits from the EU here and likewise
more high level Malaysian visits to the EU. This will help push our
cooperation agenda forward, for the sake of our bilateral relations, and
for addressing regional and global issues such as climate change. There
are plenty of topics of common interest to talk about.
 
Thank You for listening.
 
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agreement would be good for the region, because Malaysia would set
the trend for other countries to follow.
 
The second example is policies to mitigate climate change. For the
Copenhagen talks in December this year, the EU has put its offer on the
table. It is the 20-20-20 package for 2020 (20 percent reduction of
carbon emission compared to 1990 levels; 20 percent share of
renewable energy in the total energy consumption; and 20 percent cut in
energy consumption through improved energy efficiency by 2020. That is
the EU offer. 
 
What are we asking from Malaysia? EU is not asking for a binding
commitment from Malaysia and other developing countries, but we are
asking for voluntary goals. We hope that Malaysia will be ambitious in
battling climate change and see this as part of mainstream economic
policy. The indications begin to be positive, as there are signs that the
Government will create a forward policy for energy efficiency and
renewable fuels. The EU will be ready to partner on that.
 
I will not go further, just mention briefly there we are also embarking on
cooperation on the information society, education and RTD. We also
operate a developing cooperation programme in Malaysia—its size is
modest because of Malaysia’s middle-income status. We are setting up a
new project for cooperation with Middle Income Countries and are also
starting a grants programme for civil society organizations under the
European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights.
 
 
   6
even though expert studies show a clear economic advantage for
ASEAN from a broad and deep FTA.
 
The second reason was political, namely the EU’s refusal to negotiate an
FTA that includes Myanmar and Myanmar’s insistence on being part of
any ASEAN agreement with the EU. As a result, the FTA talks are being
held hostage politically hostage. For these reasons both sides have
agreed to take a pause in the talks for the purpose of reflection and
reassessment.
 
The third big chunk in our relations is sustainable development and
creation of Malaysia’s knowledge-based economy. This is a very
dynamic part of our relations as the EU is keen on promoting sustainable
development. We want to create a future-oriented partnership for
sustainable development with Malaysia, linked to Malaysia’s Vision 2020
to be a developed country in that year. 
 
I will give you a few concrete examples of things we do to support that
goal. 
 
First, our talks about a bilateral agreement to promote trade in legal
timber, the so called FLEGT Agreement (Forest Law Enforcement and
Governance and Trade). These talks are approaching their final phase
and hopefully this year agreement would be established. If that happens, 
Malaysia would be the first Asian country with a legal timber trade
agreement with the EU. This would be good not just for the Malaysian
forests, but also for the Malaysian timber and furniture industry, as it will
create a distinct advantage for Malaysian timber on the EU market. The   5
 
EU policies towards Malaysia
Cooperation between EU and Malaysia could be seen in the EU-
Malaysia policy which is divided into three big chunks, namely: (1)
Political cooperation, (2) Trade, (3) Sustainable development and
knowledge-based economy.
 
In the political area, we are preparing negotiations of a Partnership &
Cooperation Agreement to further deepen our relationship with Malaysia.
We work together in regional security issues such as the Middle East
Peace Process. We are also working on to promote sharing of know-how
with ASEAN. We do not see the EU as a model for ASEAN, but it can be
a source of inspiration and of knowhow and practical experience.
 
In trade, the first point to make is that, seen against the sizeable volume
of our trade, there are relatively few trade problems. And, the few
problems that exist are all relatively minor. In general we have had a
constructive trade dialogue and are able to resolve most issues. An
example is the sanitary problems in the seafood and fisheries sector.
This is now being resolved to the very strong efforts by the Malaysian
authorities.
 
The only unsatisfactory issue has been the region-to-region FTA talks
between ASEAN and the EU. In these talks progress has been too slow
and results have been below target. Two reasons contributed to this.
First, the lowest offer from one ASEAN member tended to become the
common denominator for all. The results of our talks thus fell far short of
the goals formulated by the EU-ASEAN Vision group. This happened   4
 
In the EU, we recognize the important of Asia. Our Asia policy was
adopted in 2001, and it is still valid till now though it may need some
updating. The EU-ASEAN policy was adopted in 2006. The EU is a big
supporter of ASEAN, the most advanced regional integration initiative in
Asia. And the EU supports the South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation (SAARC).  We value ASEM –the Asia Europe Meeting— as
an informal inter-governmental dialogue platform. In Brussels yesterday
and today it held a ministerial meeting on energy security. 
 
How would we describe Malaysia? Malaysia is a key partner for the EU.
On the one hand, we can trace this back to historical links, going back to
the 1500s. On the other, Malaysia is our number 2 trade partner in
ASEAN with a trade volume of 28 billion Euros in 2008. Total EU FDI in
Malaysia amounts to EUR 8 billion. Malaysia has a medium-sized
market, and with its upper medium income it has the potential of being a
lead country in socio-economic policies, including the environment.
Malaysia also has a geographically strategic location with a lot of
strategic assets such as the tropical forest and palm oil (often Malaysian
call their country small; that may be partly so, but in palm oil, you are a
world power). Finally, Malaysia presents religious and ethnic diversity
and plays a valuable role in the Islamic world. This offers us an
opportunity for access and dialogue to the wider community of Islamic
countries and it gives Malaysia a chance of facilitating or levering peace
processes.  
 
All of these attributes and characteristics make that the EU want to
engage with Malaysia in very complete relations.
   3
 
Despite all these areas of positive progress, the EU faces a critical time.
For one thing, our institutional reform, contained in the draft The Lisbon
Treaty, has been in the works for a long time now (since December 2000
when EU leaders agreed to set up the consultative mechanism for
designing treaty reform) , and it has created some uncertainty and has
caused a risk of loss of momentum. 
 
A second issue continues to be the EU’s failure to communicate with the
citizen. The EP election clearly illustrates the distance between the EU
and the EU citizen. That gap exists despite the very evident, day-to-day
benefits the EU has created for the EU citizen. In the economy, in social
policy, in the freedom to work and reside in other Member States, with
passport-free travel, and many other ways.
 
And, thirdly, the world’s economic decline has not spared the EU. We
face hard times just like most other economies. The EU and the Member
States individually are working hard to implement stimulus programmes
with a value of around 500 billion Euros. The EU leaders are meeting
today to discuss the key topics on the economy and financial sector
reform. 
 
How does the EU see Malaysia
Though our topic today is about how Malaysia perceives the EU, I’d like
to present to you how the EU sees Asia and Malaysia. There is no need
to elaborate on the risen importance of Asia to EU. The EU and Asia
work together in the issue of politics, economy/ trade, global and regional
threats such as security, climate change, anti-terrorism, migration and
trafficking, and of course piracy.   2
Introduction
 
I would first briefly recall where the EU itself stands. We have just
celebrated our Europe Day, which marks our birthday. Just like Malaysia,
we are 52 years old this year.
 
The EU is about regional integration. Without a doubt, notwithstanding all
the problems we face –in the economy, in global affairs, on the
environment—and notwithstanding the seemingly continuous
constitutional and institutional debates, the EU is the world’s best and
most successful regional integration project. 
 
We have developed from a war-torn Europe ravished by World War II
into an integrated continent with 27 Member States. The EU’s
enlargement is not over, the number of Member States is continuing to
go up. Currently, we have accession negotiations with Croatia and
Turkey. Other countries in the Western Balkans are candidate countries
and when the conditions are right we will start the accession talks with
them as well. And it looks likely that Iceland will apply for EU
membership in the near future. 
 
What’s more, the EU reaches out beyond its borders. The EU has a ring
of friends, in the Mediterranean and on our Eastern border (we recently
adopted the Eastern Partnership for political dialogue and economic
convergence with our eastern neighbours). Moreover, we are reaching
out to countries around the globe through cooperation and outreach for
specific policy areas such as the Bologna Process for higher education,
research cooperation, and migration policies.
 EUROPEAN COMMISSION 
 
EU-Asian relations: “Policies and Perceptions of the EU in
Malaysia”
On June 19, 2009 @ Asia-Europe Institute, Malaysia
 
Speech by H.E. Vincent Piket, Ambassador & Head of
Delegation of the European Commission Delegation to
Malaysia
 
 
 
Professor Datuk Dr. Ghauth Jasmon, Vice Chancellor of University of
Malaya,
 
Ambassador Dato’ Ramanathan Vengadesan, The Asia-Europe
Foundation Governor of Malaysia
 
Professor Dato’ Paduka Mohamad bin Abu Bakar, Department of
International and Strategic Studies 
 
Professor Datuk Dr. Roziah Omar, Executive Dircetor, Asia-Europe
Institute
 
Professor Martin Holland. Director, National Centre for Research on
Europe, University of Cantebury, NZ
 
Professor Rajendran Jain, Chairman, Centre for European Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
 
Ladies and gentlemen
 
It is my great pleasure to represent the EU in presenting the Policies and
Perceptions of the EU in Malaysia.